The State of Bacon Egg and Cheese Breakfast Tacos in Austin Texas Part 7: El Taco Rico

Montopolis is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Austin. It’s a little down at the heels, which to me is part of it’s charm. Established in the mid 1800’s it was snatched like a jewel by the city of Austin after the turn of the 20th century and annexed.

The neighborhood’s claim to fame is that it houses the best Mexican restaurant in town: El Taco Rico. Yes, it’s not a restaurant proper, just a small, tidy, taco cart in a laundry mat parking lot but when it comes to crafting food into being, Chef Yolanda Sanchez Cornejo has no peer locally.

I’ve written at length about this chef’s cuisine in the past and with a gorgeous Spring sun peeping up over my backyard this morning I felt an urgent need for some of Chef Cornejo’s top flight breakfast tacos.

I’ve been on an odyssey these past few months as I make my way through a 49 part series on the state of tacos in Austin Texas. Part of this journey has involved going to a lot of taco joints that I’ve never been to before.

In the hopes of finding the new, hot thing I’ve been neglecting El Taco Rico.

Big mistake.

My bacon egg and cheese taco arrives on a warm, pillowy corn tortilla. I sit in a meditative silence and let the steam from the masa waft upwards for a moment. Delayed gratification being what it is I bask for a few moments before I begin plundering my breakfast.

It’s the best taco I’ve had in several weeks of traveling all over Austin proper, eating tacos, documenting tacos and pondering the current state of tacos.

The bacon is rich with the flavor of pig but more importantly, not overcooked, which is a tendency most restaurants suffer from. The tortilla, always the best hand-rolled in the city, maintains it’s iron grip on the number one spot with a note perfect statement of deliciousness. I always go divorceado style with each salsa as the red and the green are equally delicious.

I don’t know what Chef Sanchez-Cornejo puts in those eggs but it’s along the lines of salvia divinorum, existing legally only til the lege gets involved, then she’ll have to go black market style vending where she can, when she can til the man shows up and shuts her down.

My travels take me across Austin on a daily basis. I eat from a diverse set of taco carts in the furthest most reaches of our city. El Taco Rico has many competitors but there is none finer.